The 5-Position Switch is a normally-open contact switch that provides directional output to your project.

This switch has a nice snappy feel, and returns to the center/un-pressed position immediately when it is released. By monitoring the input state of five pins, it's easy for a microcontroller to detect whether the switch is in the up, down, left, right, or pressed position. It is possible for more than one position to make contact at a time (e.g. pressed+right, left+down, pressed+right+down), for a total of 18 input states.